Cutting for Stone

was responsible for most everything Indian schoolboys learned (or misunderstood) about sex.

“Oh … and after that?” Genet said.

“Well, I got up, got dressed, and left.”

“Did it hurt you?” I asked.

“No pain.” From his unsmiling expression, he could have been talking about getting an ice cream at Enrico's.

“That's it?” Genet asked. “Then you paid her?”

“No, I paid her first.”

“What did she say when you were leaving?”

Shiva thought about that. “She said she liked my body, and she liked my skin. That next time she would give it to me … doggy style!”

“What did she mean, ‘doggy style’?”

“I didn't know. I said, ‘Why wait till next time? Show me now.’ “

“You had money?”

“That's what she asked. ‘You have money?’ But I didn't. She let me do it anyway. From the back was what she called doggy style. This time I think she had her own … explosion.”

“God,” Genet said, groaning and sliding down in her chair, her face suffused with blood. “What's the matter with you, Marion? Where are you going?”

I had risen from my chair. The scent coming from Genet was overpowering, the air shimmering pink with it.

“What's the matter with me?” I was not as annoyed as I acted. “How am I supposed to study here, tell me? I can't believe you asked me that.”

The matter with me was that I was terribly aroused, hearing Shiva's story, and now seeing the sultry look in Genet's eyes, her body in touching distance, smelling her in heat, and knowing she was willing. If I didn't leave, I was going to have my own explosion in my pants. I had to leave. I shoved my biology notes into my jacket.

I found Rosina standing too close to the kitchen door and now pretending some special interest in the stove. Even if she wasn't eavesdropping or lacked any sense of smell, she surely saw the pink cloud wafting out of the dining room. She avoided my eyes. Mother and daughter couldn't seem to escape each other, with Genet determined to act outrageously, and Rosina just as determined to respond, and it was difficult to say who initiated their battles. Rosina was my ally in one sense, because she kept Genet safe for me. But it annoyed me to see her hovering in this way.

“I'm going to the souk,” I said gruffly.

“But you just sat down to study, Marion.”

I glared at her, daring her to stop me.

I TOOK MY TIME walking down to the front gate. I bought a Coke but then gave it to Gebrew. I sat in his sentry hut. I didn't want to go home until my mind and my body were back to baseline. Gebrew's long story about a troublesome nephew helped the cause.

Eventually, I bid Gebrew good night, and I headed back. When I turned up from the roundabout to the road leading to our bungalow, I saw that there was a light on in the toolshed. Shiva worked late there many nights.

Whenever I came this way in the dark, I felt dread as I neared the spot where the army man went airborne. There was a crack in the concrete of the curb that commemorated that moment when the BMW's front wheel had been arrested.

The tree trunks creaked and groaned. The rustling of the leaves sounded ominous, like a hand sifting through coins. I fully expected to see the army man rise out of the darkness. After years of imagining him, I would find it almost a relief when he appeared. Shiva had no such qualms because he stayed in the toolshed late into the night. The passing years hadn't taken away from me the weight of what had happened at this spot; but the fear had become familiar. I understood what made people confess to murder years after the fact; they believed that it was the only way to cease tormenting themselves. I hurried past that turn in the road.

I heard music from Shiva's radio in the toolshed.

I was just past the toolshed, almost to our house, when I saw a figure come purposefully down the hill. It was pitch-dark, and now I heard a muttering sound—it was talking to itself. My heart was in my mouth, but what kept me from panic was that it sounded like a woman. Only when the figure was almost on me did I see that it was Rosina. Where could she be headed at this hour? She came up very close to me, studying my face the way she often did to be sure I was not Shiva. Then, before I registered her anger, she slapped me. She was all over me, cuffing me and pulling me down by my hair with her left hand while she slapped me with her right.

“I warned you!” she screamed.

“Rosina! What are you talking about?” I said, cowering.

This only infuriated her. I suppose I could easily have stopped her, or run, but I was too shocked to react. She slapped me again.

“Five minutes I leave you alone, and this is what happens! So clever, you pretending to go to the souk, and she to the bathroom.”

When I asked her to explain, she swung at me, and this time I turned so her blow found the back of my head.

“I waited,” she said. “I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Then I went looking for you. I saw her coming up the hill. You sent her out first, didn't you? If she gets pregnant, what happens?” Rosina hissed in my ear. “It means she'll be a maid like me. All that English and studying books won't make any difference in her life.”

“But, Rosina, I didn't—”

“Don't lie to me, my child. You were never good at lying. I saw you two looking at each other. I should have kept her home right then.”

I stood silent, staring at her.

“You want proof? Is that it?” she yelled. “She reached to her waist and drew something out and flung it at me. A pair of women's panties. “Her blood … and your seed.” I picked the garment off my face. In the dark I could see nothing. But I could smell blood, the scent of Genet … and I could smell semen. It was mine. I recognized my starchy scent. No one else shared that odor.

No one but my twin brother.

I HAD NO HEART, no energy, to do anything but to crawl into bed. I felt battered. I felt alone. Shiva came to bed much later. I waited to see if he would say anything. At some point he fell asleep while I lay there awake. In Ethiopia there was a method of divining guilt called lebashai: a little boy was drugged and taken to the scene of the crime and asked to point out the guilty party. Unfortunately, a hallucinating youngster's pointing finger too often stopped in front of an innocent who was then stoned to death or drowned. Lebashai was banned in the empire, but it still went on in the villages. That was how I felt: falsely accused by the pointing finger, but unable to defend myself.

What I could do was extract revenge. The guilty party slept next to me. I could have killed Shiva that night. I thought about it. I decided it would solve nothing. My world was already destroyed. My arms were dead. My brain was numb. My love had been turned into a mockery of love, into shit. I had no reason, no desire, to do anything anymore.

GENET DIDN'T GO to school the next day. Shiva left with Hema's reluctant permission to go with Mr. Farinachi to Akaki, to the textile factory where one of the giant dye machines had seized. Farinachi had been asked to manufacture a part, and he wanted Shiva to come and see the giant looms.

I stayed in bed. When Hema came to see why, I said I didn't feel well and wouldn't go to school. She took my pulse, looked at my throat. She was puzzled. When she tried to quiz me, I said, “Never mind, I'm going.” That was easier than facing an interrogation.

I don't remember anything about that day in school. Ghosh and Hema had no idea what had transpired, but they knew something had happened. The door and window to Rosina's quarters were closed, and they could hear Rosina carrying on in there in a loud voice.

That evening Hema said there were three of Rosina's relatives— a woman and two men—visiting her. Hema